The  Mediaeval 


AND 


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^  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^ 


Presented    byPVe^^  \  cX  (2^\^-V   VcA-V^o  r~\ 

LD4606 


Division 
Section  ■ 


Or  that  the  past  7vill  always  win, 
A  glory  from  its  being  far. 

From  art,  from  nature,  from  the  schools. 
Let  random  influences  glance. 


The  Mediaeval 

AND 

The  True  Modern  Spirit 


IN 


Education 


A  THESIS 


On    Education,   with  a  Few  Truisms,  Commentaries   and   Suggestions   on   thk 

Princeton  Curriculum,  by  a  Loyal  and  Grateful  Alumnus, 

Twenty-five  Years   after  Graduation. 


PRIVATELY   PRINTED,  NOT   PUBLISHED 
In  April,  1903 


PBE8S  OF 

IHb  NEW  ERA  PRINTJNS  OOMPANK 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


The  Medieval  and  the  True  Modern 
Spirit  in  Education. 


Written  at  a  distance  and  some  time  after  severing 
direct  connection  with  the  University  these  observa- 
tions may  gain  in  perspective  while  they  may  lose 
in  exact  reflection  of  present  conditions.  Wholly 
impersonal,  they  represent  the  result  of  years  of 
experience,  also  of  questioning  students  in  different 
colleges,  especially  those  of  Princeton,  Columbia, 
Yale,  and  Harvard  universities.  They  purposely 
omit  all  reference  to  questions  of  moral  and  physical 
education.  In  course  of  comment  on  education  as 
it  is  at  Princeton  an  original  attempt  is  made  to 
develop  a  fundamental  theory  of  education  which  it 
is  hoped  may  be  of  some  service.  This  paper  is 
therefore  partly  critical  partly  constructive. 

Let  us  love  the  Alma  Mater,  but  not  blindly. 

It  is  the  part  of  loyalty  to  an  institution  to  recog- 
nize its  defects  and  its  merits,  not  to  publish  abroad, 
but  to  discuss  them  in  the  inner  circle  of  friends,  who 
may  differ  as  to  means  but  are  absolutely  united  as 
to  the  end  to  be  attained.  This,  all  would  agree,  is 
to  keep  Princeton  to  the  front  in  religion,  letters, 
science  and  the  service  of  the  State. 

As  regards  the  public  and  educational  life  of  the 

3 


4  The   Medicsval  and  the 

country,  we  must  take  more  account  of  changed  con- 
ditions ;  of  the  fact  that  we  are  no  longer  preparing 
largely  for  the  ministry,  although  strong  influence 
should  be  exerted  in  this  direction,  and  that  while 
law  and  medicine  still  make  large  demands  on  our 
graduates,  new  objects  of  education  are  rapidly 
springing  up.  There  is  the  public  service  in  city, 
state  and  nation,  the  call  for  college-trained  men  in 
the  government  scientific  bureaus,  in  the  colonies  ; 
the  large  demand  for  teachers  incidental  to  the  rapid 
extension  of  educational  institutions  throughout  the 
country,  and  for  men  trained  in  literary  lines.  Is 
Princeton  doing  her  full  share  in  entering  men  into 
these  lists  ?  This  could  only  be  fairly  answered  by 
careful  statistical  inquiry,  but  we  must  not  forget 
that  Princeton  once  held  a  leading  position  in  the 
national  g-overnment  and  that  this  is  no  lono-er  the 
case.  At  present  only  a  single  graduate  holds  a 
highly  influential  government  office.  In  state  ser- 
vice, especially  in  New  Jersey,  Delaware  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, some  of  our  graduates  are  prominent.  Among 
great  lists  of  appointees  recently  made  under  the 
reform  government  of  the  city  of  New  York,  Prince- 
ton graduates  were  conspicuous  by  their  absence. 
In  the  fillinor  of  hundreds  of  leoral  and  other  offices 
under  the  new  grovernment  but  two  Princeton  men 
were  chosen.  Both,  it  is  true,  have  achieved  con- 
spicuous success. 

It  appears  that  Princeton  is  not  in  as  close  touch 
as  the  third  college  of  the  country  should  be  with 
modern  life  in  any  of  its  manifold  phases.  As  a  col- 
lege every  historical  and  natural  advantage  is  hers 


True   Modern    Spirit  in   Education  5 

and  it  is  the  coUecje  that  we  have  in  mind  in  this 
paper. 

Symptoms  of  the  lack  of  public  appreciation  of  the 
Princeton  educational  system  are  found  in  the  lack 
of  gifts  to  the  University  outside  of  those  which  come 
from  the  large  and  ever-increasing  circle  of  loyal 
alumni.  Our  curriculum  certainly  does  not  inspire 
public  interest  or  confidence.  It  has  the  general 
reputation  of  being  excessively  conservative.  It 
classes  us  with  all  the  smaller  colleges  and  separates 
us  from  all  the  larger  universities  of  the  country  and 
the  world.  There  is,  moreover,  a  profound  dissatis- 
faction on  the  part  of  many  of  the  most  thoughtful 
of  our  alumni  with  its  present  stationary  or  rather 
reactionary  condition.  The  writer's  own  thoughts 
were  turned  several  years  ago  in  this  direction  by 
the  casual  remark  of  an  alumnus,  who  said:    "Say 

what  you  please  of one  can  get  an  education 

there." 

One  might  pronounce  with  equal  or  greater  stric- 
ture and  more  or  less  fairly  on  other  colleges  but  we 
shall  gain  more  at  Princeton  by  cultivating  a  warm 
admiration  for  the  strong  and  good  qualities  of  our 
rivals  and  a  judicial  sense  of  our  own  vulnerable 
points. 

If  our  present  college  course  is  not  accomplishing 
what  it  should,  let  us  reconstruct  it ;  if  other  colleo-es 
are  rising  to  modern  conditions,  let  us  frankly  ad- 
mire, not  for  imitation,  but  to  build  a  system  of  our 
own  as  effective  or  more  so. 


6  The   MedicEval  ajid  the 

AN  ILL-BALANCED  CURRICULUM. 

It  is  first  to  be  noted  that  during  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  the  Freshman  and  Sophomore  curricula 
have  stood  practically  still,  the  new  riches  of  the 
University  having  been  chiefly  poured  into  the  Junior 
and  Senior  years,  with  the  result  of  a  total  lack  of 
balance  in  the  course  as  a  whole.  As  a  fact,  we 
have  a  two-year  mediaeval  and  a  two-year  modern 
curriculum,  largely  unconnected  ;  and  the  question 
is,  whether  one  is  really  preparing  for  the  other. 

This  will,  however,  be  made  more  clear  after  we 
have  considered  the  relations  of  School,  Freshman 
and  Sophomore  life,  the  nature  of  the  mediaeval  and 
of  the  true  modern  spirit  in  education. 

UnatU^active  to  the  Schools.  —  As  related  to  the 
schools,  two  head  masters,  both  loyal  alumni  and 
exceptionally  able  educators,  have  recently  expressed 
their  dissatisfaction  with  the  lack  of  attraction  in  our 
early  curriculum.  If  one's  advice  were  asked  in  the 
case  of  a  student  with  strong  natural  science  tastes, 
could  one  conscientiously  recommend  the  early 
Princeton  curriculum  ?  Take  a  single  instance.  Mr. 
A.  (a  man  of  classical  and  philosophical  training)  has 
a  son  of  fifteen,  of  strong  scientific  tastes,  preparing 
for  Princeton.  The  boy  is  now  reading  Virgil  and  a 
Greek  reader,  and  at  eighteen  will  be  ready  to  enter. 
At  this  time  Princeton  will  demand  of  Mr.  A,,  "We 
know  more  about  this  matter  than  you  do  ;  the  mind 
of  your  boy  still  needs  training  in  the  classics,  he 
must  continue  until  he  is  twenty.  According  to  our 
theory  of  education  one  third  of  your  son's  entire 


True   Moder7i   Spirit  hi   Education  7 

life  should  be  given  to  those  studies.  He  will  then 
be  admitted  to  the  observational  work  of  science." 
What  Oxford  would  demand  of  the  same  student 
will  be  seen  on  another  page. 

I  am  not  holding  a  brief  for  President  Eliot's 
policy  as  a  whole,  in  general  I  am  opposed  to  it ;  in 
some  respects  it  has  set  back  the  cause  of  educa- 
tion ;  mere  change  has  been  mistaken  for  progress  ; 
there  is  a  misdirection  of  fine  intellectual  material ; 
there  is  a  lack  of  sequence  and  logical  development 
of  studies  which  is  theoretically  and  practically  at 
faolt,  especially  prejudicial  to  scientific  development, 
and  against  which  many  Harvard  professors  are 
strongly  outspoken. 

But  when  we  candidly  apply  to  the  two  systems, 
as  actually  operating,  the  criterion  of  results  we  find 
that :  Harvard  graduates  in  every  sphere  of  human 
activity  are  as  successful  as  or  more  successful  than 
Princeton  graduates  ;  and  we  must  certainly  judge  a 
system  rather  by  its  results  than  by  its  theoretical 
value. 

Whatever  one  may  think  of  this  freedom  of 
studies  in  general,  it  has  certainly  been  masterly  in 
its  attractiveness  to  the  schools  and  to  a  very  large 
proportion  of  parents  of  culture  but  without  college 
affiliations  throughout  the  country.  By  raising  the 
standard  a  few  months  above  that  of  Princeton 
and  Yale,  Harvard  has  attracted  the  cleverest  and 
most  able  students  ;  by  enabling  freshmen  to  hear 
some  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  University  she  holds  out 
a  further  inducement.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  sub-freshmen  are  influenced  only  by  social 


8  The   MedicBval  and  the 

and  athletic  considerations  in  their  choice  of  a  col- 
lege. The  thoughtless  and  backward  students  may 
be  ;  the  more  thoughtful  ones  are  attracted  strongly 
by  the  nature  of  the  work  offered  in  the  earlier  years. 
From  personal  questioning  in  cases  where  I  have 
endeavored  to  exert  some  influence,  I  have  been  met 
with  the  objection,  "  I  prefer  the  academic  course  of 
training,  I  want  to  study  a  certain  subject.  If  I  go  to 
Princeton  I  shall  have  to  wait  until  I  am  twenty  or 
twenty-one  years  of  age  before  I  shall  be  allowed  to 
study  it."  Altogether,  the  Harvard  system  holds 
out  the  strongest  inducement  to  hiorh  class  enterino- 
students  ;  the  freshman  is  placed  under  an  adviser 
as  to  choice  of  subjects,  and  the  range  of  subjects 
recommends  itself  to  young  men  of  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen. I  can  positively  testify  to  the  immediate  intel- 
lectual stimulus  resulting  from  this  system.  "What 
do  you  think  of  the  Harvard  elective  system  ? "  I 
asked  a  prominent  New  England  school  teacher. 
"I  do  not  know  about  the  system  as  a  whole,"  he 
replied,  "but  I  know  that  most  of  our  boys  become 
interested  and  get  to  work  as  soon  as  they  reach 
there." 

As  regards  the  early  introduction  of  scientific 
courses,  some  of  my  old  colleagues  would  consider 
it  revolutionary,  and  I  myself  would  not  consider  it 
at  all  advisable  to  open  a  general  course  in  geology 
to  freshmen ;  yet  one  hears  the  popular  course 
under  Professor  Shaler  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  most 
stimulating.  Last  year,  on  the  occasion  of  a  com- 
petitive examination  for  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey, 
thirteen  of  the  candidates  were  former  auditors  of 
Shaler. 


True   Modern    Spirit  in   Education  9 

Granted  that  we  had  an  ideal  educational  system 
at  Princeton,  we  would  still  be  handicapped  if  we 
did  not  secure  our  share  of  the  best  intellectual 
stock  in  the  country  and  in  the  schools.  A  course 
of  study  which  would  attract  the  most  cultivated 
parents  as  well  as  the  brightest  sons  would  furnish 
a  larger  share  of  the  promising  new  material  out  of 
which  strong  men  are  developed.  The  most  sys- 
tematic and  strenuous  efforts  should  be  made  to 
establish  and  maintain  amono-  schoolmasters  and 
pupils  throughout  the  country  the  highest  regard 
and  respect  for  our  courses  in  the  freshman  and 
sophomore  years. 

So  much  is  said  of  system  and  organization  in 
these  pages  that  counter  emphasis  must  be  laid  at 
the  outset  on  men,  that  is,  on  the  personality  of 
teachers.  Better  a  great  teacher  than  a  great  sys- 
tem ;  one  McCosh  or  one  Brackett  than  ten  com- 
mittees on  pedagogy.  If  there  is  one  feature  above 
others  in  which  President  Eliot  has  served  Harvard 
it  is  in  his  selection  of  stimulating  men,  and  in  his 
elimination  of  men  who  have  proved  themselves  in- 
capable and  unfit.  The  first  duty  of  a  college  is  not 
to  its  professors  but  to  its  students. 

Negative  Influence  of  the  first  two  Years. —  Can  we 
maintain  that  the  Princeton  students  entering  for  the 
B.A.  degree  become  interested  and  get  to  work  as 
soon  as  they  enter  Princeton  ?  Do  they  find  much 
to  interest  them  ?  Four  hours  Greek,  four  hours 
Latin,  four  hours  mathematics,  and  one  paltry  hour 
in  the  mother  tongue,  recently  increased  to  two. 
Where    are    the    riches    of   modern    literature,    the 


lo  The   Mediceval  and  the 

splendid  achievements  of  science,  the  refining  influ- 
ences of  art,  the  contact  with  public  service  ?  From 
all  this  inspiring  vision  the  freshman  is  debarred  and 
the  sophomore  gets  but  a  partial  glimpse.  Here 
and  there,  some  able  classical  and  mathematical 
teachers  in  the  earlier  years  arouse  a  wave  of  inter- 
est, as  brilliant  teachers  can  do  in  any  subject ;  but 
it  was  my  own  experience  twenty-five  years  ago  and 
that  of  all  freshmen  whom  I  have  been  interrogat- 
ing for  some  years  past,  that  the  general  effect  of 
the  first  two  years  is  deadening. 

In  theory,  the  freshmen  are  drinking  in  classical 
culture  and  acquiring  a  rare  and  unusual  mental 
training  ;  in  practice,  or  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are 
going  through  drudgery,  through  a  continuation  of 
school  boy  life,  through  a  daily  mill  of  dullness  to 
those  who  have  no  predisposition  for  languages  or 
mathematics ;  guided  by  translations,  seldom  taught 
actually  to  use  the  language,  as  the  students  of  Eng- 
lish public  schools  and  universities  are,  but  chiefly 
to  translate  and  parse.  Even  if  this  theory  of  mental 
training  were  a  good  one,  we  cannot  claim  that  it 
has  been  fairly  applied,  because  of  the  lack  of  expe- 
rience and  adequate  training  on  the  part  of  many  of 
the  younger  teachers.  At  the  present  time  many  of 
the  divisions  are  partly  in  the  hands  of  men  who 
have  not  received  the  doctor's  degree.  Owing  to 
the  unequal  distribution  of  the  riches  of  the  Univer- 
sity, the  chief  wealth  of  new  teaching  blood  has  gone 
to  benefit  the  junior  and  senior  years.  The  state- 
ment can  be  made  without  reservation  that  on  the 
average  the  freshman  in  1873  had  a  higher  general 


True   Modern    Spirit  in   Education  1 1 

standard  of  instruction  than  the  freshman  in  1902  ; 
the  teachers  in  1873,  Cross,  Halsey,  Eddy,  Hart,  all 
being  men  of  experience.  After  the  grind  of  the  fresh- 
man year  the  sophomore  returns,  knowing  the  real 
freedom  of  colleore  life — for  his  seventh  or  eisfhth 
year  of  classical  disciplinary  work  counting  his  school 
life.  Small  wonder  that  the  sophomore  has  become 
a  '  problem.'  He  enjoys  a  little  more  latitude,  logic, 
history,  a  limited  amount  of  chemistry  and  physics, 
English  in  very  limited  quantities,  Latin,  Greek  and 
mathematics  in  abundance. 

Some  of  the  results,  so  far  as  one  can  observe  the 
average  student,  are  skepticism  as  to  the  merits  of 
work,  indifference  to  education  as  a  principle,  lack 
of  culture,  oreneral  Philistinism,  ig-norance  both  of 
books  and  of  current  affairs,  illiteracy  in  spelling  and 
expression,  absorption  in  athletic  sports.  The  offi- 
cial attitude  of  the  collegfe  towards  the  freshmen  as 
an  inferior  order  of  beings  intellectually  is,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  responsible  for  the  general  attitude  of 
the  undergraduate  body  towards  this  class,  and  has 
led  to  the  creation,  one  cannot  say  revival,  of  cer- 
tain boyish  customs.  Freshmen  were  treated  more 
as  men  in  1873  than  they  are  in  1902.  There  is  a 
resulting  immaturity,  not  only  in  manner  and  in  con- 
duct but  in  intellectual  attitude  ;  but  a  more  serious 
indie tjnejit  agaijist  these  tiuo  years  is  that  it  has  failed 
to  prepare  the  men  for  the  modern  training  of  the 
juitior  and  senior  years. 


12  The   Medicsval  and  the 


WHAT   IS   MEDIEVALISM? 

As  Huxley  observes  :  "  The  mediaeval  university  looked 
backwards  ;  it  professed  to  be  a  storehouse  of  old  knowledge, 
and  except  in  the  way  of  dialectic  cobweb -spinning,  its  pro- 
fessors had  nothing  to  do  with  novelties.  Of  the  historical 
and  physical  (natural)  sciences,  of  criticism  and  laboratory 
practice  it  knew  nothing.  Oral  teaching  was  of  supreme 
importance  on  account  of  the  cost  and  rarity  of  manuscripts. 
The  modern  university  looks  forward,  and  is  a  factory  of 
new  knowledge ;  its  professors  have  to  be  at  the  top  of  the 
wave  of  progress.  Research  and  criticism  must  be  the 
breath  of  their  nostrils  ;  laboratory  work  the  main  business 
of  the  scientific  student ;  books  his  main  helpers.  .  .  .  The 
cardinal  fact  in  the  university  question  appears  to  me  to  be 
this  :  That  the  student  to  whose  wants  the  mediaeval  uni- 
versity was  adjusted,  looked  to  the  past  and  sought  book 
learning,  while  the  modern  looks  to  the  future  and  seeks 
the  knowledge  of  things."  * 

Mediaevalism  in  education  is  a  general  attitude  of 
mind  toward  both  the  subjects,  the  methods  and  the 
ends.  It  is  the  receptive  and  critical  rather  than  the 
productive.  It  should  not  for  a  moment  be  confused 
with  classicism.  The  relatively  non-productive  Ro- 
mans were  partially  mediaevalists,  but  the  highly 
productive  Greeks  were  in  no  sense  mediaevalists. 
Socrates,  Plato  and  Aristotle  were  eminently  men  of 
their  period,  or  moderns,  in  education,  as  we  learn 
from  their  frequently  reiterated  views.  If  these 
great  men  in  their  discourses  on  education  had  rec- 
ommended the  youth  of  Greece  to  devote  ten  of  the 
formative  years  of  their  lives  first  to  the  Mycenaean 


*  "  Life  and  Letters,"  vol.  2,  328-329. 


True   Modern    Spirit  in   Educatioji  13 

language  and  culture,  and  second  to  the  Egyptian 
lanoruag^e  and  culture,  then  those  who  maintain  that 
our  modern  youth  should  devote  the  entire  formative 
period  of  their  minds  to  ancient  languages  might 
rightfully  claim  to  be  classicists.  The  true  classi- 
cist in  education  would  therefore  appear  to  be  one 
who  follows  most  closely  the  highest  classical  models 
in  education,  and  these  are  certainly  the  models  set 
by  the  Greeks,  both  in  their  methods  and  in  their 
results. 

Plato,  as  a  classic  model  observes:  "We  next 
come  to  arithmetic,  geometry  and  astronomy  .  .  . 
all  citizens  shall  learn  the  rudiments  of  these  sciences, 
not  because  of  the  necessities  of  practical  life  but  be- 
cause these  are  endowments  belonging  to  the  divine 
nature.  By  a  good  method  the  teaching  of  these 
sciences  may  be  made  attractive  and  interesting ;  so 
that  no  force  may  be  required  to  compel  youth  to 
learny'''  We  thus  find  the  highest  classical  author- 
ity for  the  modern  ideals  of  education,  and  that  the 
Greeks,  while  anticipating  us  in  the  sciences,  gave 
ethics,  philosophy,  literature  and  science  their  proper 
balance  and  proportion.  Their  system  resulted  in 
the  most  remarkable  achievements  in  the  way  of  pro- 
duction the  world  has  ever  known. 

This  is  in  contrast  to  the  practice  of  the  mediaeval 


*  Compulsory  education  is  for  the  school  perhaps,  certainly  not  for  the  col- 
lege or  university.  A  course  which  does  not  interest  and  attract  is  a  failure. 
A  teacher  who  year  after  year  fails  to  interest,  attract  or  inspire,  has  mistaken 
his  profession  and  should  take  up  some  other  calling.  Stimulus  and  interest, 
thoroughness  and  sequence  in  the  course  of  study,  may  be  taken  as  the  methods 
of  handling  pupils  as  set  forth  by  Plato,  while  the  subjects  he  recommended 
were  exactly  those  of  our  junior  and  senior  curricula. 


14  The   MedicBval  and  the 

educators,  in  the  renaissance  of  classical  learning, 
whose  maxim  was  to  study  books,  not  nature  ;  it 
never  occurred  to  the  mediaeval  compilers  to  examine 
the  things  about  them,  the  birds,  the  fishes,  flowers, 
and  leaves,  or  even  human  society  ;  their  entire  time 
was  occupied  in  studying  and  discussing  what  Aris- 
totle and  Pliny  had  to  say  about  these  matters. 

This  is  the  receptive  rather  than  productive,  the 
centripetal  rather  than  centrifugal  spirit  in  education 
and  in  learning. 


THE   TRUE   MODERN   SPIRIT. 

One  may  ask  at  this  point,  what  are  these  Greek- 
modern  ideals?  What  is  the  true  modern  spirit, 
inculcated  by  Greek  masters  ?  Have  we  gained  a 
fuller  perception  and  clearer  analysis  of  the  ideals 
and  aims  of  education  ?  It  is  doubtful.  In  the 
smoke  and  confusion  about  elective  and  required 
courses  the  fallacy  has  got  abroad  that  moderji  sub- 
jects constitute  the  essence  of  the  true  modern  spirit 
of  education.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the 
truth.  When  we  consider  how  entirely  diverse  the 
subjects  are  on  which  the  minds  of  great  men  have 
been  bred  down  the  ages,  we  realize  that  it  is  not 
the  subject  but  the  spirit.  I  can  fancy  a  modern  lan- 
guage taught  in  a  most  intensely  mediaeval  fashion, 
and  an  ancient  language  under  a  different  type  of 
teacher,  as  the  source  of  the  most  modern  spirit. 

If  we  would  teach  a  youth,  we  may  still  safely  fol- 
low Socrates'  rule  that  the  less  we  think  for  him  and 
the  more  he  thinks  for  himself  the  better.     We  want 


True   Modern   Spirit  in   Education  15 

to  turn  out  thinkers  both  in  the  theoretical  and  prac- 
tical spheres  of  life  ;  men  whose  action  is  controlled 
by  reflection. 

In  this  endeavor  to  produce  thinkers  and  men, 
back  of  all  curricula,  of  all  adjustments  of  required 
and  elective  studies,  we  must  constantly  set  before 
us  the  true  modern  spirit  of  education,  namely  the 
inculcation  of  the  forces  which  underlie  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  progress  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  race. 

Write  it  down  on  the  tables  of  the  heart  and  mind 
that  these  are  :  First,  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong, 
and  the  sense  of  beauty  and  fitness  ;  second,  knowl- 
edge of  tradition,  of  books,  of  the  experience  of  other 
men  in  the  present  and  previous  generations  ;  third, 
knowledge  by  direct  and  personal  observation  of 
men  and  nature  ;  fourth,  the  truths  which  may  be 
derived  from  this  knowledge  by  processes  of  reason- 
ing ;  fifth,  the  benefits  which  may  be  conferred  on 
mankind  by  conveying  these  truths  through  powers 
of  expression  in  speaking  and  writing ;  sixth,  and 
finally  as  the  highest  goal  of  education,  the  produc- 
tion of  new  ideas  out  of  the  study  of  past  experience 
and  out  of  natural  experiment.  These  are  the  six 
grand  forces  of  modern  life  and  therefore  of  educa- 
tion, which  are  as  essential  to  the  perfectly  educated 
man  as  the  six  great  systems  of  organs  in  the  human 
body  are  to  the  man  of  ideal  physical  development. 
They  are  also  reflected  in  six  great  natural  gifts  or 
constitutional  predispositions  of  men,  one  having  the 
gift  for  truth,  another  for  beauty,  another  for  learn- 
ing, another  for  observation,  another  for  reasoning, 


1 6  The   Medicsval  and  the 

another  for  expression,  another  for  creative  produc- 
tion. The  rare  man,  the  genius,  is  he  who  combines 
the  largest  number  of  these  gifts  in  the  largest 
measure. 

The  first  four  forces  are  purely  receptive,  or  cen- 
tripetal. Ethics  and  aesthetics,  book  learning,  obser- 
vation and  reasoning  may  all  be  pursued  in  course 
of  a  monastic  existence,  totally  without  benefit  to 
one's  fellow  men.  The  last  two  forces,  expression 
and  production,  are  the  centrifugal  applications  of 
knowledge  to  service,  and  it  is  here  that  education 
reaches  its  highest  point. 


The  six  great  forces  in 

The  final  end  and  object  of 

education. 

education. 

Ethical  and  sesthetic. 

Training 

Learning. 

Observation. 

and 

Reasoning. 

Expression. 

Production. 

Service. 

Granting,  for  the  time,  that  ideal  education  in  its 
last  analysis  comes  down  to  the  cultivation  of  these 
forces,  the  mediaeval  and  the  Greek-modern  theories 
may  now  be  contrasted  in  respect  to  each. 

I.   TRUTH   AND   BEAUTY. 

"Again,  many  of  you  think  it  is  not  only  a  waste  of  time, 
but  a  positive  sin,  to  read  novels  and  poetry  and  general 
literature,  to  cultivate  in  any  way  the  imagination,  to  take 
an  interest  in  painting  or  sculpture  or  music.     You  have  yet 


True   Modern    Spirit  in    Education  17 

to  learn  that  although  parrots  and  other  imitative  animals 
can  get  on  without  imagination,  there  is  no  such  thing  in 
existence  as  an  unimaginative  scientific  man.  That  you 
have  some  imagination  and  individuality  is  evidenced  by 
your  differentiation  from  all  other  students  of  science  classes; 
but  have  you  these  well  developed,  and  have  you  those  other 
quahties  which  are  absolutely  necessary  for  the  success  of  a 
scientific  worker  ?  Imagination  is  far  and  away  the  most 
important ;  but  there  are  also  judgment  and  common  sense, 
and  the  love  of  truth  and  the  power  of  self-sacrifice,  which 
seem  always  to  accompany  the  pursuit  of  science."  * 

The  divine  order  of  truth  and  beauty  is  at  the 
foundation  of  all  things  and  forms  the  soul  of  educa- 
tion. It  is  aside  from  the  present  discussion  whether 
ethics  and  aesthetics  were  more  of  less  appreciated 
by  mediaevalists  than  by  moderns.  Without  truth  as 
the  central  principle  education  is  fruitless.  In  the 
sphere  of  aesthetic  cultivation  we  are  on  more  de- 
batable ground,  as  will  be  readily  seen  from  the  fol- 
lowing comparison.  French  environment  from  child- 
hood abounds  in  aesthetic  cultivation  while  perhaps 
less  insistent  on  the  element  of  truth.  German, 
English  and  American,  in  short,  Teutonic  education 
is  deficient  in  the  element  of  beauty,  while  perhaps 
more  insistent  on  the  element  of  truth.  Teutonic 
education  is,  on  the  whole,  of  greater  service  to  the 
world.  The  combination  of  these  elements  is  the 
ideal  to  be  sought  by  the  educator.  The  inculcation 
of  this  combination  is  through  religion,  nature,  classi- 
cal and  modern  literature,  and  art. 


*  Inaugural  address  of  Prof.  John  Perry,  Nature,  October  23,  1902,  p.  645. 


1 8  The   Medicsval  and  the 


II.   LEARNING. 

"  With  this  close  hold  upon  practical  life  and  this  con- 
stant interest  in  the  politics  of  the  world,  especially  of  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States,  no  one  could  be  less  like  that 
cloistered  student  who  is  commonly  taken  as  the  typical 
man  of  learning.  But  Lord  Action  was  a  miracle  of  learn- 
ing. Of  the  sciences  of  Nature  and  their  practical  applica- 
tions in  the  arts  he  had  indeed  no  more  knowledge  than 
any  cultivated  man  of  the  world  is  expected  to  possess. 
But  of  all  the  so-called  '  human  subjects'  his  mastery  was 
unequalled.  Learning  was  the  business  of  his  life.  He 
was  gifted  with  a  singularly  tenacious  memory.  .  .  .  The 
passion  for  acquiring  knowledge  which  his  German  educa- 
tion had  fostered  ended  by  becoming  a  snare  for  him,  be- 
cause it  checked  his  productive  powers.  It  absorbed  so 
much  of  his  time  that  little  was  left  for  literary  composition. 
It  made  him  think  that  he  could  not  write  on  a  subject  till 
he  had  read  everything,  or  nearly  everything,  that  others 
had  written  about  it."* 

Mediae valism  was  distinctively  the  period  of  book 
learning.  The  survival  of  mediaevalism  is  the  sur- 
vival of  faith  in  this  single  factor  of  education  as  of 
paramount  value  and  importance.  This  is  merely 
the  centripetal  h-adition  factor  which  must  precede 
the  centrifugal  production  factor. 

General  information,  knowledge  of  tradition  and 
history  as  set  forth  in  books  and  booklore,  of  litera- 
ture and  science,  represent  what  we  gain  from  what 
other  men  have  done  for  us.     The  late  Lord  Acton 


*  Special  correspondent  of  the  Evening  Post,   London,  June  23,    1902. 
The  Evening  Post,  Friday,  July  18,  1902. 


True   Modern   Spirit  in   Education  19 

may  be  cited  as  a  modern  medisevalist  of  the  highest 
type,  of  vast  learning,  of  limited  production  ;  the  les- 
son of  his  life  is  extremely  impressive. 

By  way  of  contrast  to  Acton,  Victor  Hugo,  Balzac, 
Browning,  Tennyson,  our  own  Fiske  may  be  cited  as 
endowed  with  both  factors,  with  stores  of  learning 
which  they  were  ready  to  pour  into  expression,  into 
the  conversations,  debates,  and  discussions  of  their 
men  and  women  or  into  pages  of  history.  Darwin 
while  at  Cambridofe  neglected  sources  of  book  knowl- 
edge  ;  but  was  led  back  to  book  learning  after  he 
had  become  attracted  to  science  by  observation  and 
found  that  it  was  necessary  to  draw  from  the  re- 
corded observations  of  others  ;  and  he  became  a  man 
more  learned  in  books  than  any  scientific  man  of  his 
generation,  a  fine  illustration,  by  the  way,  of  the 
principle  that  the  first  aim  of  the  teacher  or  the  in- 
stitution should  be  to  enlist  the  spiiHt  of  the  student 
in  some  subject ;  once  enlisted  the  value  and  necessity 
of  correlated  knowledge  or  learning  becomes  appareitt. 
Book  learning  must  occupy  a  very  large  amount  of 
time  and  it  is  of  course  absurd  to  depreciate  book 
learning  in  education,  as  is  done  in  some  faddist 
schools,  in  early  college  specialization,  or  in  the  ex- 
treme application  of  the  laboratory  system.  The 
point  is,  that  in  the  mind  of  every  teacher  and  in  the 
educational  theory  of  the  institution  there  should  be  a 
clear  realization  of  the  exact  position  which  it  occu- 
pies in  relation  to  the  other  forces  of  education. 


20  The   MedicBval  and  the 

III.     OBSERVATION. 

"  You  know  much  of  what  has  been  done,  but  have  you 
the  power  to  discover,  to  add  to  the  world's  knowledge  ? 
Your  knowledge  has  been  derived  from  books  and  lectures  ; 
you  have  now  to  learn  that  a  week  in  the  laboratory,  during 
which  you  seem  to  crawl,  during  which  for  examination 
purposes  you  do  less  than  in  reading  ten  lines  of  a  text- 
book, is  really  of  more  value  to  your  scientific  education 
than  a  month's  hard  reading.  This  is  almost  unbeliev- 
able to  you  who  are  such  adepts  in  passing  examinations, 
yet  it  is  quite  true.  Lectures  and  lessons  have  spoon-fed 
you  until  now ;  lectures  and  lessons  will  in  future  teach  you 
to  feed  yourselves."  * 

"  But  how  willingly  I  would  as  a  poet  exchange  some 
of  this  lumbering,  ponderous,  helpless  knowledge  of  books, 
for  some  experience  of  life  and  man."  f 

Here  is  the  keynote  of  the  transition  from  book 
learning  to  original  observation  of  men,  of  facts  and 
things,  of  nature,  as  the  only  absolute  sources  of 
philosophical  knov^^ledge.  This  gift  of  observation, 
quick  and  keen  in  children,  probably  inherited  from 
our  ancestral  life  w^here  powers  of  observation  w^ere 
factors  in  survival,  is  studiously  ignored  in  the  medi- 
aeval system  of  education.  It  is  the  fountain  from 
v^hich  has  flowed  all  our  knowledge  of  the  universe 
— with  its  incalculable  benefits  to  man  —  not  the 
least  of  which  is  his  loftiness  of  purpose  and  spirit. 
The  world  holds  its  own  by  learning,  it  moves  by 
observation. 


*  From  abstract  of  inaugural  address  of  Prof.  John  Perry,  Nature,  October 
23,  1902,  p.  645. 

•]- Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  to  Robert  Browning,  March  20,  1845. 


True   Modern   Spirit  in    Education  21 

The  college  is  primarily  responsible  for  the  per- 
sistent warping,  curbing  and  discouraging  of  this 
God-given  faculty  even  in  the  home  and  school  life, 
because  it  iofnores  observation  in  its  entrance  re- 
quirements,  excepting  in  so  far  as  some  recent  con- 
cessions have  been  made  to  it  in  two  of  the  sciences. 
Here  I  may  quote  from  a  noteworthy  recent  address 
by  the  head  master  of  one  of  the  most  successful 
colleges  in  England.  "A  school  preparation  should 
be  of  a  kind  which  will  foster  the  desire  and  develop 
the  power  to  overcome  difficulties  ;  it  should  give 
self-reliance  and  sufficient  knowledge  of  scientific 
principles  to  enable  the  pupil  in  after  life  to  under- 
stand changing  conditions  and  see  their  trend. 
Above  all,  school  work  should  encourage  the  spirit 
of  inquiry  which  finds  delight  in  making  new  ob- 
servations and  experiments  with  whatever  resources 
are  available.  The  principle  upon  which  Humboldt 
constructed  Prussian  education  a  century  ago  was  : 
whatever  we  wish  to  see  characteristic  of  our  nation 
we  must  first  implant  in  our  schools.  Assuredly  if 
we  would  prepare  our  scholars  for  life,  the  supreme 
intellectual  preparation  is  found  in  methods  which 
evoke  the  faculty,  the  originality,  the  mental  re- 
sourcefulness of  our  pupils.  It  is  for  us  to  see  that 
the  subjects  and  methods  of  teaching  in  our  schools 
are  such  as  to  promote  the  development  of  these 
qualities,  for  national  progress  depends  upon  them." 

The  college,  again,  is  responsible  if,  when  young 
men  are  entrusted  to  its  care,  it  does  not  at  once 
recognize  that  this  grandest  of  human  faculties  must 
be   continuously  cultivated  and  encouraged ;    if  it 


22  The   MedicEval  and  the 

does  not  recognize  that  what  we  observe  is  less  vital 
than  that  we  observe  at  all.  Food  for  observation 
is  what  is  needed ;  not  always  the  same  food ; 
neither  is  it  necessarily  in  the  scientific  sphere  ;  it 
may  be  in  the  poetical,  literary,  classical,  social,  or 
political,  as  most  admirably  put  by  Montaigne : 

"  This  great  world  which  some  do  yet  multiply  as  several 
species  under  one  genus,  is  the  mirror  wherein  we  are  to 
behold  ourselves,  to  be  able  to  know  ourselves  as  we  ought 
to  do  in  true  bias.  In  short,  I  would  have  this  to  be  the 
book  my  young  gentleman  should  study  with  the  most  at- 
tention. .   .   . 

"  Truth  and  reason  are  common  to  every  one,  and  are  no 
more  his  who  spake  them  first,  than  his  who  speaks  them 
after :  'tis  no  more  according  to  Plato,  than  according  to 
me,  since  both  he  and  I  equally  see  and  understand  them. 
Bees  cull  their  several  sweets  from  this  flower  and  that 
blossom,  here  and  there  where  they  find  them,  but  them- 
selves afterwards  make  the  honey,  which  is  all  and  purely 
their  own,  and  no  more  thyme  and  marjoram  :  so  the  several 
fragments  he  borrows  from  others,  he  will  transform  and 
shuffle  together  to  compile  a  work  that  shall  be  absolutely 
his  own ;  that  is  to  say,  his  judgment,  his  instruction, 
labour  and  study,  tend  to  nothing  else  but  to  form  that.  He 
is  not  obliged  to  discover  whence  he  got  the  materials,  that 
have  assisted  him,  but  only  to  produce  what  he  has  himself 
done  with  them.   .   .   . 

"  The  boy  we  would  breed  has  a  great  deal  less  time  to 
spare ;  he  owes  but  the  first  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  his 
life  to  education  ;  the  remainder  is  due  to  action.  Let  us, 
therefore,  employ  that  short  time  in  necessary  instruction."* 


*  Montaigne,  Vol.  I,  pp.  177,  187,  195. 


True   Modeini    Spirit  in  Education  23 

Observation  in  the  experience  of  every  observer 
becomes  one  of  the  strongest  motive  powers  or  in- 
centives to  book  learning. 

Here  we  may  refer  to  the  lack  of  sequence  between 
the  mediaeval  and  the  modern  years  of  Princeton  edu- 
cation, to  what  has  been  styled  above  an  "ill-balanced 
curriculum."  One  can  never  forg^et  the  exhilaration 
of  entrance  into  the  junior  year.  For  men  of  all  but 
exclusively  linguistic  or  mathematical  tastes  it  is  like 
escape  from  a  monastery.  The  college  bell  summons 
to  philosophy,  psychology,  political  science,  physics, 
astronomy  !  But  as  the  student  proceeds  he  dis- 
covers two  fatal  defects  in  himself:  first,  his  previous 
training  has  not  fitted  him  for  original  observational 
sciences  ;  second,  he  has  no  foundation  of  learning 
for  his  secondary  sciences,  no  thoroughly  funda- 
mental or  practical  knowledge  of  chemistry  or  phys- 
ics, such  as  he  requires  for  his  geology  or  biology. 
Having  devoted  eight  years  of  his  life  to  Latin  and 
Greek  including  more  than  half  of  his  freshman  and 
sophomore  years,  he  finds  that  in  an  ill-balanced 
curriculum  little  account  has  been  taken  of  the  prec- 
ious value  of  time  in  relation  to  subjects  and  masters 
in  education.  On  translations  under  inexperienced 
teachers  time  has  been  fairly  lavished  and  now  for 
want  of  time  he  hurries  through  a  grand  subject,  like 
astronomy,  under  a  grand  master,  at  such  a  rate  of 
speed  that  the  higher  educational  value  of  the  sub- 
ject is  lost  and  only  the  lower  informational  value 
remains.* 


*To  this  haste  rather  than  to  any  lack  of  ability  and  the  inspiration  on  the 
part  of  our  two  great  teachers  of  physics  and  astronomy  must  be  attributed  the 
fact  that  Princeton  has  not  turned  more  men  into  these  subjects. 


24  The   Mediceval  and  the 

Thus,  quite  unconsciously  as  a  rule,  the  student 
experiences  the  fact  that  the  mediaeval  education  is 
not  articulated  with  the  modern,  and  has  not  pre- 
pared him  for  it ;  he  never  realizes  until  later  in  life 
if  at  all  what  he  has  lost  by  the  non-cultivation  of  his 
original  powers  of  observation  through  the  long 
period  beginning  in  school  life  and  running  through 
early  college  life. 


IV.    REASONING. 

The  previous  forces,  beauty  and  truth,  book  learn- 
ing, observation,  do  not  imply  reasoning  power.  I 
have  in  mind  two  most  gifted  observers,  profound 
students  and  prolific  writers,  who  were  totally  devoid 
of  logic.  The  courses  most  calculated  to  develop 
this  power  are  logic,  philosophy,  the  history  of  the 
sciences  —  more  especially  where  taught  by  personal 
contact  and  discussion  between  master  and  student. 
In  all  this  sphere  the  Princeton  curriculum  is  theor- 
etically strong.  We  breed  sound  thinkers.  The 
practical  cultivation  of  reasoning  power  by  the  in- 
ductive-deductive method  must  be  separately  developed 
by  the  criticism  of  the  teacher  in  every  branch  of 
original  work. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  centripetal  or 
receptive  factors  in  education,  although  observation 
and  reasoning  are  on  the  border  land.  We  now 
pass  to  the  purely  centrifugal  factors,  the  altruistic 
ends  of  education. 


True   Modern   Spirit  in   Ed2ication  25 

V.    EXPRESSION. 

"  For  my  part,  I  venture  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  attempt- 
ing to  mould  one's  style  by  any  other  process  than  that  of 
striving  after  the  clear  and  forcible  expression  of  definite 
conceptions,  in  which  process  the  Glassian  precept,  '  First 
catch  your  definite  conceptions,'  is  probably  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  obey.  But  still,  I  mark  among  distinguished  con- 
temporary speakers  and  writers  of  English,  saturated  with 
antiquity,  not  a  few  to  whom,  it  seems  to  me,  the  study  of 
Hobbes  might  have  taught  dignity,  of  Swift  concision  and 
clearness,  of  Goldsmith  and  Defoe  simplicity." 

The  gist  of  Huxley's  famous  sentence  quoted 
above  is  that  ideas,  practice,  and  the  native  literature 
are  the  three  chief  forces  in  the  cultivation  of  style. 

The  mediaeval  spirit  has  always  been  characterized 
by  prejudice  to  the  mother  tongue.  Formerly  it  was 
seen  in  the  writing  of  the  Bible  and  all  works  of  sci- 
ence in  Latin,  now  it  is  seen  in  the  reliance  upon 
Latin  and  Greek  as  adequate  in  the  cultivation  of 
the  art  of  expression.  It  is  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able features  of  modern  times  that  this  prejudice  still 
survives  and  is  expressed  in  our  college  curricula. 

The  English  system  at  Princeton  is  certainly  intro- 
duced too  late  ;  as  part  of  the  great  preparation  for 
the  work  of  the  junior  and  senior  years  English 
should  receive  far  more  attention  and  time  in  the 
freshmen  and  sophomore  years.  The  writer's  at- 
tention was  called  to  the  ill-balanced  condition  of  the 
English  courses  by  an  excellent  and  conscientious 
student  who  spoke  of  the  English  in  the  freshman 
year  as  regarded  by  the  students  as  a  joke,  namely, 


26  The   Mediceval  and  the 

as  an  hour's  exercise  with  a  text-book,  never  pre- 
pared beforehand,  nor  seriously  considered  by  any 
one.  This  is  a  positive  retrogression  from  our  curri- 
culum of  a  quarter  century  back.  Not  many  years 
ago,  a  professor  from  another  university  came  to 
Princeton  to  learn  our  methods.  Since  that  time 
Harvard,  Yale  and  Columbia  have  all  introduced 
extensive  and  effective  Engrlish  training-  in  the  fresh- 
man  year. 

Princeton  still  holds  back  partly  from  inadequate 
endowment  but  partly  also  from  principle.  One  of 
the  writer's  classical  friends  remarked  :  "I  trust  these 
new  ideas  (of  English  education)  will  not  be  rapidly 
introduced,  and  that  my  son,  at  least,  will  find  his 
English  education  in  the  classics,  which  are  ade- 
quate to  give  him  all  the  necessary  powers  of  style." 
On  this  point  it  may  be  said  that  the  classics  as 
generally  taught  in  American  colleges  fail  to  have 
the  productive  and  constructive  value  in  expression 
which  is  afforded  by  the  English  system.  In  Eng- 
land there  is  a  constant  interchange  of  classical 
and  English  expression,  and  style  is  thereby  culti- 
vated and  developed.  In  America,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  chief  process  in  classical  education  is 
translation,  parsing,  translation.  As  the  college  en- 
trance examination  approaches  translation  increases 
in  intensity  ;  not  even  a  pretence  can  be  made  that 
English  style  is  thereby  cultivated  ;  and  the  chief 
argument  for  the  classical  system  must  be  abandoned 
if  this  system  is  not  properly  applied.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  '  productive '  methods  of  classical  training 
are  of  unquestioned  advantage  in  style,  both  to  the 
man  of  letters  and  of  science. 


True   Modern    Spirit  in    Education  27 

In  this  day,  when  the  chief  exponents  of  EngHsh 
style,  Huxley  with  no  early  classical  training,  and 
Tyndall  of  scientific  education,  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  as  masters  of  style  with  Maurice  and  Gold- 
win  Smith,  of  classical  education ;  when  Darwin 
and  Galton  are  models  of  simplicity  and  clearness, 
it  surely  cannot  be  maintained  that  there  is  any 
monopolistic  classical  road  for  the  acquisition  of 
style.  The  writer  has  in  mind  a  young  naturalist 
of  no  classical  training  whatever  who  expresses  him- 
self in  charming  style  and  is  in  great  demand  as  a 
writer  for  such  a  critical  journal  as  the  Evening  Post. 


VI.    PRODUCTION. 

"  Produce !  Produce  !  "  exclaims  Teufelsdrockh  in  Sartor 
Resartus.  "  Were  it  but  the  pitifullest  infinitesimal  fraction 
of  a  product,  produce  it,  in  God's  name  !  'Tis  the  utmost 
thou  hast  in  thee  :  out  with  it,  then." 

This  is  the  final  goal  of  the  educational  system, 
which  should  be  prepared  for  by  arousing  the  true 
modern  spirit  in  every  course  in  school  and  college. 
Practically  applied  during  the  senior  year  by  the 
preparation  of  an  original  thesis  on  a  subject  of  elec- 
tion, it  represents  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  uni- 
versity or  graduate  school. 

Most  men  are  born  consumers,  few  are  gifted  with 
the  power  or  desire  to  produce.  Yet  the  educator 
should  bear  this  centrifugal  factor  in  mind  in  every 
phase  of  education,  in  every  subject,  in  every  course. 
In  English  it  is  the  original  theme  ;  in  Classics  it  is 


2  8  The    MedicBval  aiid   the 

the  turninp-  of  Enorlish  into  Latin  or  Greek  ;  it  is  the 
original  rather  than  the  memorizing-  task  ;  in  mathe- 
matics it  is  the  original  problem  ;  in  science  it  is  the 
original  experiment,  however  simple  —  in  short,  it  is 
the  outflow  from  the  student's  brain  instead  of  the  in- 
flow which  constitutes  the  rudimentary  steps  in  the 
training  for  production. 

The  graduate  school  is  the  school  of  production. 
Princeton  is  abundantly  supplied  with  men  capable 
of  directing  graduate  students  in  various  lines  of  pro- 
ductive and  original  work  ;  and  it  is  expected  that 
the  present  organization  of  the  graduate  school  will 
prove  to  be  effective  in  bringing  all  the  forces  at 
present  latent  and  potential  in  the  University  to  bear 
in  this  crowning  work.  A  larger  endowment  is,  of 
course,  greatly  desired  ;  but  the  thing  for  Princeton 
is  first  to  show  what  she  can  do  with  her  present  men 
and  her  present  resources.  When  we  consider  that 
in  the  little  Princeton  of  1877  with  only  400  students, 
seventeen  men,  including  all  the  ablest  men  of  the 
graduating  class  and  some  others,  remained  for  dis- 
tinctively university  work,  and  that  out  of  this  num- 
ber a  very  considerable  proportion  have  achieved 
success,  it  is  obvious  that  from  the  three-fold  larger 
classes  now  graduating  a  still  larger  body  of  men 
may  be  attracted  to  return. 

The  ideal  university  course  now  is  for  the  Ameri- 
can graduate  to  devote  not  less  than  three  years  to 
his  doctorate,  one  of  which,  at  least,  shall  be  spent 
abroad,  returning  for  the  final  year  of  research  and 
for  the  degree  from  his  own  university. 


Trtie   Modei'ii   Spirit  in   Edzication  29 

RECONSTRUCTION    OF   THE   CUR- 
RICULUM. 

The  inevitable  conclusion  is  that  the  Princeton 
curriculum  requires  thorough  reconstruction  rather 
than  alteration  or  repair.  It  must  be  considered 
de  novo  and  adapted  to  modern  conditions.  The 
rigidity  of  our  system  is  similar  to  that  which 
drove  Darwin  to  idle  away  his  days  at  Cambridge, 
and  frightened  Rowland,  the  greatest  physicist 
America  has  produced,  away  from  college  altogether. 
Are  such  minds  worth  arresting  and  interestino-  if 
good  fortune  sends  them  among  us  ?  Our  present 
system  ignores  the  profound  constitutional  or  he- 
reditary intellectual  predispositions  or  differences 
which  exist  among  young  men,  and  one  of  the 
first  objects  of  a  curriculum  shoidd  be  to  fasten  the 
interest  of  the  student  at  some  poiiit  for  some  subject, 
and  tise  this  as  a  lever  to  lead  him  to  take  a  more 
serious  vieiu  of  other  sttbjects.  Every  man  is  born  to 
do  one  thing  better  than  any  other ;  the  earlier  he 
discovers  it  the  better  it  may  be  for  his  intellectual 
salvation. 

Princeton  must  progress  with  the  rest  of  the  edu- 
cational world.  In  the  past  quarter  century  we  have 
stood  absolutely  still  so  far  as  any  radical  reconstruc- 
tion is  concerned,  and  now  occupy  a  unique  and  iso- 
lated position  among  the  larger  universities  of  the 
world.  The  old  and  conservative  colleges  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  have  abandoned  certain  principles 
for  which  we  are  still  standing.  One  would  expect 
to   see  in   the  current  magazines  and  reviews  the 


30  The    MedicBval  and  the 

friends  of  the  Princeton  system,  if  there  be  such, 
taking  the  offensive  and  holding  their  ground  ;  but 
one  looks  in  vain  for  articles  of  this  character. 

Few  of  us  appreciate  how  conservative  and  reac- 
tionary our  position  is.  Here  is  a  part  of  a  letter 
regarding  a  young  student  entering  a  '  natural  sci- 
ence '  course  at  Oxford,  which  is  in  bright  modern 
contrast  to  the  mediaeval  conditions  the  same  student 
would  face  were  he  to  desire  to  enter  with  us  :  "  The 
other  Balliol  scholarships  are  equally  the  first  things 
in  their  respective  categories,  and  it  is  interesting 
from  the  point  of  view  of  heredity  that  4  of  them  are 
now  held  by  sons  of  Oxford  resident  teachers :  2  in 
classics,  I  in  modern  history,  and  now  i  in  natural 
science.  Ted  will  go  back  to  Rugby  till  August, 
and  come  up  here  next  October  when  he  will  be  just 
over  19.  That  is  I  think  just  the  right  age  to  begin 
University  Hfe.  He  will  in  the  meantime  chiefly 
study  modern  languages,  especially  German,  as  he 
has  finished  his  Greek  and  Latin  two  years  ago  [that 
is  at  1 7]  and  passed  the  '  certificate  examination ' 
which  is  accepted  instead  of  all  classics  up  here," 

Altered  Positioji  of  the  Classics  in  Educatio7i. — 
We  should  totally  abandon  the  claim  that  the  clas- 
sics have  superior  '  mind  training '  value  or  that 
they  alone  best  conduce  to  a  '  pure  English  style  '  — 
and  substitute  the  claims  of  the  true  modern  spirit 
that  as  perfected  studies  the  classics  develop  syste- 
matic thinking;  by  familiarizing  us  with  the  greatest 
people  of  any  age  they  give  us  a  sense  of  perspec- 
tive and  proportion  for  our  lives  and  times  ;  that  they 
tend  to  broad  culture,  and  that  they  may  be  har- 


True   Modern    Spirit  in   Education  31 

moniously  and  advantageously  combined  with  classi- 
cal history,  art,  archaeology  and  philosophy. 

"  No  doubt  both  Greek  and  Latin  are  very  great 
ornaments,  and  of  very  great  use  but  we  buy  them 
too  dear."  These  words  of  Montaigne  exactly  fit  the 
situation.  College  education  in  the  classics  now  ex- 
tends from  the  eighteenth  to  the  twentieth  year. 
Years  aofo  it  extended  from  the  seventeenth  to 
the  nineteenth  year.  It  is  extremely  important  to 
keep  in  mind  the  advanced  age  of  entrance,  which 
has  been  brought  about  partly  by  the  increased  re- 
quirements, partly  by  the  generally  freer  social  con- 
ditions in  our  colleges  which  lead  parents  to  hesitate 
to  send  their  sons  at  the  earher  age.  Thus  has 
arisen  a  greater  disproportion  between  mediaeval 
education  and  modern  education  than  existed  pre- 
viously. In  other  words,  there  has  been  a  positive 
retrogression  in  this  regard,  an  actual  increase  in 
amount  of  time  in  proportion  to  the  whole  life  period 
which  is  given  to  these  subjects.  Summing  up  the 
whole  linguistic  training  as  compared  with  training 
in  other  subjects,  or  any  other  group  of  subjects,  up 
to  the  time  of  graduation,  say  at  the  twenty-first  year, 
we  find  that  it  compares  in  about  the  same  ratio  as  a 
cathedral  to  a  village  chapel.  No  cultivated  man  can 
fail  to  appreciate  classical  education  :  on  the  contrary, 
modern  science,  and  more  especially  the  biological 
sciences,  all  benefit  by  classical  preparation.  The 
question  is  not,  therefore,  as  the  value  of  the  classics, 
but  as  to  whether  the  classics  are  so  valuable  as  to 
warrant  their  absorbing  four  fifths  of  the  whole  edu- 
cational period,  and  nearly  one  third  of  one's  life- 


2,2  The   MedicBval  and   the 

time.  Exactly  the  same  criticism  applies  to  over- 
mathematics. 

'  Required '  classics  beyond  the  freshman  year  is 
an  anachronism.  Let  the  student  learn  what  the 
ancient  authors,  taught  in  the  culture  spirit,  repre- 
sent ;  if  they  still  do  not  appeal  to  him,  nothing  is 
gained  by  continuing  the  high  protective  tariff  another 
year.  It  is  this  high  protection  which  has  been  so 
fatal  to  the  life  of  these  studies.  From  the  sopho- 
more year  on  let  the  classical  and  mathematical 
teachers  compete  for  students  with  the  humanists 
and  the  scientists. 

Princeton,  thanks  to  the  new  library,  to  the  semi- 
nar system,  and  to  the  accession  of  teachers  of  talent 
and  enthusiasm,  is  now  enjoying  a  classical  revival 
in  the  best  sense.  There  is  a  rare  opportunity  in 
the  future  development  of  the  Art  School  to  make  a 
new  departure  in  classical  education.  We  would 
rejoice  to  see  a  beautiful  building  exclusively  devoted 
to  classical  teaching,  connected  with  the  galleries  of 
the  Art  School  and  the  monuments  of  Greek  and 
Roman  antiquity.  In  other  words,  archaeological 
should  go  hand  in  hand  with  linguistic  teaching. 
There  is  now  a  totally  unscientific  divorce  between 
the  Greco-Roman  archaeology,  as  taught  in  the  junior 
and  senior  years,  and  the  purely  linguistic  work  of 
the  freshman  and  sophomore  years.  This  is  another 
illustration  of  the  lack  of  sequence  and  correlation  in 
our  present  courses. 

Theory  of  Reconstrttction. — For  the  early  years  of 
the  course  we  would  first  advocate  in  general  that  a 
true  proportion  be  established  between  the  Classics, 


True   Modern   Spirit  in   Education  -^Ty 

English,  Modern  Languages,  Mathematics,  Physics 
and  Chemistry,  Logic,  History,  Government  (citizen- 
ship and  service  of  the  state)  ;  as  if  the  educational 
problem  were  to  be  considered  de  novo,  and  we  had 
an  opportunity  to  build  up  a  curriculum  not  upon 
tradition  and  custom,  but  upon  the  merits  of  various 
subjects  and  upon  their  relative  value  in  cultivating 
the  six  Pfreat  forces  of  education  as  above  described. 

The  two  fundamental  sciences  should  be  taught, 
not  in  a  technical  spirit,  nor  even  as  groundwork  for 
serious  research,  but  in  a  felicitous  welding  of  hard 
thinking,  of  information,  of  philosophy,  of  culture, 
and  glimpses  into  the  marvels  of  the  cosmos.  Such 
a  lecturer  as  Brackett  gave  us  a  standard  in  1875.  A 
well  known  man  of  letters  still  speaks  of  this  course 
as  the  most  cultivating  of  all  his  four  years. 

The  second  step,  partly  a  financial  one,  is  to  restore 
the  per  capita  cost  of  education.  There  is  no  inher- 
ent reason  why  it  should  cost  several  times  as  much 
to  educate  a  junior  or  a  senior  as  it  does  to  educate 
a  freshman  or  a  sophomore  ;  the  under  classmen 
are  paying  as  large  or  even  larger  total  fees  than 
the  upper  classmen.  They  are  not  receiving  their 
share  of  the  benefits  of  these  fees,  but  these  benefits 
are  crowded  into  the  two  upper  years  where  there  is 
such  a  profusion  of  courses  that  no  man  can  take  ad- 
vantage of  them  all.  In  other  words,  there  should  be 
such  a  redistribution  of  the  educational  riches  of  the 
University  that  the  freshman  and  sophomore  years 
should  be  as  full  of  inspiration  as  the  junior  and 
senior  years. 

As  soon  as  a  student  enters  Princeton  he  should 


34  The   MedicBval  and  the 

feel  a  strong  and  refreshing  contrast  to  school  life  in 
the  wider  intellectual  horizon  ;  in  the  continuation  of 
classical  work  on  the  culture  rather  than  the  '  cram  ' 
basis,  in  the  immediate  stimulus  of  English,  in  the 
glimpse  into  political  and  national  life,  and  if  he 
elects,  into  the  world  of  science  also  through  a 
course  in  physics. 

The  third  object  is  the  establishment  of  sequence 
in  the  various  lines  of  work,  such  a  sequence  that 
the  freshman  and  sophomore  work  will  naturally- 
lead  in  the  various  lines  into  the  junior  and  senior 
work,  and  prepare  men  for  it.  The  Chinese  wall 
which  now  divides  these  four  years  into  '  mediaeval ' 
and  '  modern '  is  wholly  unnatural,  and  should  be 
replaced  by  a  sequence  of  studies. 

The  fourth  object  is  the  recognition  that  the  natu- 
ral sciences  and  the  humanities  contribute  alike  to 
modern  liberal  culture ;  that  the  sciences  supply  far 
the  best  media  of  original  observation,  of  reasoning 
from  cause  to  effect,  of  induction  and  generalization. 
This  is  their  specific  educational  value. 

Fifth,  that  laboratory  instruction  or  direct  observa- 
tion in  the  sciences  is  the  method  most  effective,  al- 
though for  larger  classes  it  involves  expenditure 
which  will  make  it  almost  prohibitive  at  present. 

Sixth,  that  a  deliberate  and  thorough  course,  with 
;sufficient  time  for  collateral  reading,  reflection  and 
'discussion,  has  more  educational  value  than  a  large 
number  of  hurried  courses. 

Seventh,  that  personal  contact,  discussion  and  de- 
liberation between  students  and  teachers  is  quite  as 
potent  and  in  some  cases  even  more  potent  than  lec- 
ture room  contact. 


True   Modern   Spirit  in   Education  35 

In  the  writer's  opinion,  the  best  method  of  bring- 
ing about  a  sequence  of  studies  in  the  first  two  years 
is  the  institution  of  the  group  system,  which  has  been 
successfully  tried  at  Johns  Hopkins,  Bryn  Mawr,  and 
Chicago,  and  is  under  consideration  elsewhere.  This 
system  evades  the  extreme  disadvantages  of  the  free 
range  of  election,  and  combines  the  advantages  of 
the  elective  and  the  required  systems  ;  that  is,  after 
the  student  has  made  a  general  choice,  the  faculty 
decides  what  is  the  proper  correlation  and  sequence 
of  studies,  what  should  precede  and  what  should 
follow  ;  while  still  allowing  for  absolute  freedom  of 
choice  in  the  later  years. 

Science  pursued  as  a  technical  profession  belongs 
by  itself,  and  the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  School  of 
Science  is  to  divide  into  two  parts,  one  part  leading 
to  the  technical  professions,  the  other  more  closely 
correlated  with  the  work  of  liberal  education.  The 
divorce  between  academic  and  general  (that  is,  non- 
professional) scientific  studies  is  totally  unnatural ;  it 
is  another  survival  of  mediaevalism,  namely,  the  no- 
tion that  the  trainingr  of  the  mind  throuQrh  the  works 
and  thoughts  and  language  of  man  is  superior  to 
training  through  the  works  of  nature.  All  nature 
studies  pursued  for  their  own  sake  belong  in  the 
same  category  as  classical,  philosophical  and  literary 
studies.  All  scientific  studies  pursued  with  reference 
to  technical  professions,  or,  in  other  words,  all  ap- 
plied sciences,  belong  in  another  class.  The  ten- 
dency of  recent  progress  has  been  clearly  to  recog- 
nize this  distinction  ;  and  Princeton  should  rank  with 
the  leaders  in  this  inevitable  educational  reform. 


2,6  The   MedicEval  and  the 

Fallacy  of  the  Three-Year  Course  Argument. — It 
is  to  the  interest  of  all  education  that  the  American 
college  should  preserve  its  integrity,  intermediate 
between  the  school  and  the  university.  The  three- 
year  question  promises  soon  to  be  an  economic  one 
of  the  first  importance  because  it  will  soon  affect 
seriously  the  flow  of  student  life  and  patronage.  It 
may  be  met  only  by  moderating  the  age  of  entrance. 
The  fallacy  of  the  argument  for  a  three-year  course 
consists  in  the  fact  that  when  we  look  back  at  the 
whole  trend  of  American  education  in  the  last  quar- 
ter century  it  is  obvious  that  the  present  cause  of 
this  movement  is  the  increased  aofe  of  entrance  to 
college  which,  in  turn,  is  partly  the  natural  evolution 
of  the  human  race  in  the  prolongation  of  childhood 
and  boyhood,  partly  the  increased  entrance  require- 
ments. The  arithmetic  of  the  matter  is  this  :  from 
one  to  two  years  have  been  added  to  school  life,  and 
to  equalize  matters  it  is  now  proposed  to  subtract 
one  year  from  college  life,  one  whole  year  of  loss  in 
the  culture  period  of  education  as  the  net  result. 
The  most  sang-uine  schoolmaster  does  not  claim  that 
the  school  period,  terminating  with  the  dreaded  two 
years'  cram  for  the  entrance  examination,  is  a  culture 
period.  Similarly,  university  or  graduate  work,  while 
embracing  and  developing  a  larger  culture,  is  dis- 
tinctively special  even  when  proceeding  along  lines 
of  three  great  subjects.  For  example,  the  graduate 
may  pursue  physics,  chemistry  and  biology,  as  his 
two  minors  and  a  major.  These  will  require  his  un- 
divided attention  and  energy  for  at  least  three  years, 
and  whatever  culture  he  gains  is  that  which  always 


True  Modern   Spirit  in   Education  37 

comes  from  the  more  profound,  original,  and  pro- 
ductive investigation  of  any  subject. 

The  college  course  must,  therefore,  stand  distinct- 
ively for  culture,  not  in  the  restricted  sense  but  in 
the  broad  sense  of  the  cultivation  of  knowledge,  of 
book  learning,  reasoning,  observation  of  men  and 
things,  expression,  and  the  firm  establishment  of 
those  high  ethical  and  aesthetic  standards  which  lend 
to  all  future  specialization  the  absolutely  essential 
elements  of  truth,  beauty  and  service.  Neither  does 
the  college  course  of  four  years  afford  more  than 
sufficient  time  to  prepare  for  university  work  in  any 
of  the  humanistic  or  natural  sciences.  On  the  con- 
trary, these  sciences  demand  at  least  two  years  of 
special  preparation  before  the  student  can  advan- 
tageously enter  work  for  the  degree  of  Ph.D. 

The  wise  exception  as  regards  the  four-year  course 
is  naturally  that  students  preparing  for  the  profes- 
sions, ministry,  law,  medicine,  may  devote  their 
fourth  year  to  the  fundamental  studies  and  work  of 
those  professions.  As  long  as  Princeton  lacks  either 
a  law  or  medical  school,  it  will  be  extremely  difficult 
to  make  this  fourth-year  preparatory  work  valid  in 
another  university,  such  as  Columbia,  for  example  ; 
but  I  believe  that  the  desirability  of  securing  Prince- 
ton graduates  in  the  professional  schools  of  Colum- 
bia, Harvard  and  other  universities,  will  make  it 
possible  to  bring  about  some  reciprocal  arrangement 
whereby  Princeton  senior  work  will  receive  the  same 
credit  as  Columbia  or  Harvard  senior  work. 

April,  1902 


38  Postscript 

POSTSCRIPT. 

At  the  head  of  the  university  is  one  who  embodies 
the  true  modern  spirit  in  his  education,  his  person- 
ality, his  ideals,  his  production.  This  spirit  is  rever- 
ence for  the  past,  appreciation  of  the  present,  readi- 
ness for  the  future.  Under  his  leadership  trustees, 
faculty,  alumni  and  students  will  unite  with  mind, 
heart  and  means  to  restore  and  maintain  the  historic 
prestige  of  Princeton  as  a  national  influence  in  every 
worthy  branch  of  human  activity. 

April,  1903. 


DATE  DUE 

■   i-Jjl 

JUNl 

5  1994 

JUN 

f^m^ 

w  vi^ 

DEMCO  38-297 

LD4608  .081  ^,ue  modern  spirit 

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